A new state forest in Rutland County named after conservation-minded former U.S. Sen. Jim Jeffords opens this month, thanks to pooled resources of federal and state agencies, nonprofit groups and individual donors, according to a statement released Wednesday by The Trust for Public Land.

The 1,346-acre tract connects protected land in the adjacent Aitken State Forest and Coolidge State Forest and straddles the towns of Shrewsbury and Mendon.

That connectivity will benefit native wildlife such as bear, moose, fisher and bobcat that range through the Green Mountains, according to the Trust’s release.

Sunlight warms a hillside in February 2013 near Mendon Brook in Shrewsbury. This woodland is part of the Jim Jeffords State Forest, created in April 2016.(Photo: Courtesy Jerry and Marcy Monkman/EcoPhotography)

Parts of the property are less than a mile from the Long Trail, the Appalachian Trail and the Catamount Trail.

Protection of the parcel builds on earlier land-protection efforts, “resulting in a relatively unfragmented forestland block of approximately 21,000 acres,” said Gus Seelig, executive director of the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board.

The newly created Jim Jeffords State Forest (in orange) will connect protected forests in Rutland County.(Photo: Courtesy The Trust for Public Land)

VHCB, which granted $517,2000 to the land’s purchase, will manage the conservation easement on the property.

Other contributions listed by The Trust for Public Land: $469,000 from state bear corridor mitigation funds; $50,000 from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund; and private grants from Green Mountain Power; VELCO; Fields Pond Foundation; S&C Harvest Foundation; Ververka Family Foundation; Vermont Land Trust (through the Joan Sibley Estate) and 51 individuals.

The land’s previous owners, Lesley Heathcote and Nick and Deborah Holland, donated about $700,000 of the property’s value to the collective effort.

Snowshoers make their way in February 2013 along Mendon Brook in Shrewsbury, in what is now the Jim Jeffords State Forest.(Photo: Courtesy Jerry and Marcy Monkman/EcoPhotography)

Evoking Jeffords’ conservation ethos, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, wrote in a prepared statement that “nothing delighted Jim more than to get outdoors, on his own, into the woods around his home in Shrewsbury, whether on snowshoes, or with a chainsaw to bring home some firewood.

Naming a state forest in Jefford’s old stomping grounds, Leahy added, “is a perfect way to honor him, and I know that Jim would be so very proud.”